George Rebane
The ‘birther’ pot continues to boil. In ‘The Birth Certificate from Hell’ I reviewed the response to the White House posting of President Obama’s long form birth certificate. The pdf image of the certificate, available from the WH website, indicated clearly that it had been ‘photoshopped’. For more recent developments, please read Russ Steele’s 06jun11_0650 comment on that post.
RR readers know that I am of the Austrian persuasion (Mises and Hayek) when it comes to economic theory and government policy. Mises’ famous advice to governments seeking to repair recessions – “Do nothing, sooner!” – was first borne out in the Great Depression. In the recessions since, the dictum has garnered additional support. This is nowhere illustrated better than the above graphic from calculateriskblog.com (H/T to RR reader). Here we see the extension of recessions as the feds have started to ‘help’ out. And, of course, the poster child of them all is the current Great Recession that is on its way to becoming Great Depression Two.
Bush2’s TARP started things off (red line) by slowing down unemployment at the predictable and predicted (also here on RR) cost of a deeper and more extended unemployment later which President Obama cooked into this economic cow pie with his bailouts, corporate meddlings, increased regulations, and trillions of stimulus dollars that have left the socialists yapping their perennial ‘It would have been worse had we not done what we did.’ Were Mises and Hayek still alive, I venture that their next piece of advice to us would be, ‘Stand by for ram!’ (More on this at NCMW here.)
Last night I was at Bear River High School presenting some scholarships from SESF (TechTest) and the Nevada City Rotary Club on their annual awards night. And last week SESF presented the major tranche of TechTest2011 merit scholarships to Nevada Union High School seniors. These scholarships continue to support young people headed for technology careers. The daily news reminds us again that we are in dire straits as nation when it comes to supplying wealth creating workers. Thanks to the new politically correct curricula promoted by leftwing teachers’ unions, we have been turning out dumber students in mostly ‘meathead majors’. Industry is again beseeching our school systems to turn out workers with skills needed in the American workplaces (see ‘Industry Puts Heat on Schools to Teach Skills Employers Need’ in the 6jun11 WSJ), and progressive organizations like the NAACP continue to throw their weight against the kids who are most disadvantaged (here). The nearby graphic illustrates the competitive slide of US students compared to students in other OECD countries.
The shortage of qualified people in the manufacturing and service sectors is especially acute even in the days of 9+% unemployment. The greatest “service sector” job shortage is in engineers which, of course, relates to our inability to attract and educate people in the STEM subjects (STEM? Science, technology, engineering, mathematics). It would behoove all of us with a voice and a vote to become familiar with this problem which has been assiduously ignored and/or downplayed by the progressives in places where it counts – the nation’s classrooms. For more details on jobs and the strategies leading companies are using to get workers, please see the special reports in ‘The War for Tech Talent 2011’.
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